RoboNomics

Chapter 57 - 2016

"Where else?" I ask back.

Dundas and Spadina are huge streets, and this was once a busy intersection. But now that there are almost no functioning cars, it's turned into one of the many market squares found throughout the city. 

There are a few intact streetcar wires hanging overhead. Old banks with faded signs, their names in Asian characters, and broken windows overlook the market.

The sidewalks on every side of the square are lined with wooden booths, plastic tables and blankets. Each one marks out a peddler's space. On the tables, blankets, and booths are fruits and vegetables. 

Some people, in ragged clothes and with greasy hair, cook homemade meals over barrel fires. They sell the results. There's even a little meat in some stews, although it's best not to ask what animal it came from.

There's also scraps: metal, rope, cloth that is mostly intact. Some people trade the clothes they sew from see-through cotton. And there's plenty of previously illicit goods for sale: homegrown drugs, prostitutes, home brew likely made in a tub or sink ripped from an abandoned home. 

The anti-robotists haven't outlawed much in the city, but everyone expects to be paid in services or other goods. The bartering goes on undisturbed, for the most part. Calls of people hawking salvaged goods carry above the chatter. 

The square is packed: there is every kind of person shouting, talking, bartering. There's even a some people who laugh.

But there is one set of goods that's illegal. It's the one thing that could rouse the wrath of the ARs, and so it's relegated to the black market.

"Don't you think I've tried this?" Oz calls. "I can't afford this food."

"You have nothing to trade?"

"Not really."

"Don't worry about it. Just follow me." 

I walk deeper into the open-air market, dodging people who carry bundles of vegetables or metal scraps. I stop in front of a cart selling a rainbow of produce and lift my head wrap slightly. I expose my face to the cart's owner. She's a tall young woman with caramel hair and skin.

"Andrea, good to see you." I flinch at the sound of my name. "What can I do for you?'

"Hey, Maria." I lower my mask back down over my face. "Can I just have two of everything...in two separate bundles?"

"You got it." 

She lays out two long strips of threadbare cloth and begins to place each vegetable on them. When she's finished, she wraps up the bundles and hands them to me.

"I also need more of..." I glance around at the moving crowd.

"Say no more." Maria picks up an orange from the cart and removes a small bundle that was hidden underneath it. Pills for Austin.

"Should I even ask where you got these?"

"I still have my contacts." She waves me away. 

I hand one bundle of vegetables to Oz as we rejoin the mob.

"How did you do that?" Oz asks as we walk away from the cart. "Why did she give it to you for nothing?"

"Her mother was deathly ill. Austin saved her. Besides, she was once Resistance too. She knows what it's like to be on the outs." 

I look back at Oz. He's frowning.

"My husband, remember? He used to be a doctor?"

"Yeah. I remember. But...Resistance?"

"You haven't heard..." I look at him, wondering if I've said the wrong thing to the wrong person. "He just...he helped a lot of people. We get some of our food out of gratitude. Not much. Just enough to keep us alive."

"He's not helping anymore?"

"What?"

"You said he helped people. So what, he doesn't help anymore?"

Before I can answer, a scream sounds from the other side of the square. Every head turns towards the noise. 

Through the crowd, I spot figures dressed in dusty black clothes and faded red bandannas. The kerchiefs that once hid their faces from the world now lie slack around their necks. It's the Anti-Robotists.

One of them grabs a man by the shoulders and leads him away from his table of fruit. The AR tosses the man into the middle of the intersection, away from the market stalls and blankets. 

The other black-clad figures wield machine guns as they surround the fruit merchant. All around Oz and I, meanwhile, people either pack up their stalls, flee at the sight of the weapons, or push towards the spectacle of the hunched man and his persecutors.

"We have to get out of here," I say. 

I push back against the crowd of spectators. I try to find a way out.

"Let's go." 

I'm thankful I don't have to waste time explaining my reasons to Oz. We both turn away. As we hurry through the crowd, we hear one of the Anti-Robotists yelling in a shrill soprano.

"This is a warning to anyone who might be even thinking of selling illegal parts!"

(Continued in Chapter 58...)

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What do you think is about to happen? Leave me a COMMENT if you have a guess -- but don't worry if you don't...you won't want to miss what happens in Chapter 58!